1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system and, in particular to an improved computer implemented method, system, and computer program product for monitoring and saving portlet usage and subsequently generating a portal page displaying one or more portlets as used at a particular point in time or over a period of time.
2. Description of the Related Art
As networks, such as the Internet, become more and more pervasive for content delivery and communication, better methods for displaying web contents and accessing web applications are being developed. One example of a technology that efficiently displays web content and accesses web applications is a portal. Portal programs or portal applications, whether run on a server delivering content or on a client system receiving content, provide an entry point for websites and back-end applications through a portal page viewable at a client system.
In one example, a portal application generates a portal page that includes instances of portlets. In general, a portlet is a web-based application that processes requests and generates dynamic content. End-users see an instance of a portlet as a specialized content area within a portal page. Depending on the content nature of the portlet, the user may select to view different types of content within the portlet instance or content area. For example, some portlets are database driven applications that access data from remote data sources based on the currently selected option from a list of data options available for the portlet instance and present the accessed data to the user through dynamically generated content, or markup fragments.
A portal page including instances of multiple database driven portlets may access live data for currently selected data options from different sources, bring all the data into a common portal page, and display dynamically generated graphical representations of the accessed live data by each of the portlet instances. Thus, through a portal page, the data that a user previously had to access through many separate windows, each displaying one type of data, the user can now view accumulated on one page, but still separately graphically represented. For example, instead of a user having to separately access web pages for each of news, sports scores, and stock prices and separately access productivity applications, such as calendars, for project progress, calendaring changes, and other productivity data, the user accesses one portal page which includes instances of multiple database driven portlets for separately displaying, within a single page, data from news, sports scores, and stock prices to project progress, calendaring changes, and other productivity data.
While the portal page with multiple portlet instances provides the user with a quick, single page in which to view multiple types of data from multiple sources as the data changes, users may need to rely on the data accessed in a portlet instance. Currently, portal pages that include portlets are limited, however, because once a portlet updates displayed data within the portlet instance, the previously displayed data is no longer available to the user. In addition, portals are limited because as a user adjusts which portlets are displayed within a portal page or the user adjusts the selected data option within a database driven portlet instance, the previous configuration of portlet instances and the previously selected data options are no longer available.